Health & Social Care Commissioning may leave GPs straddling a confl ict of interests
The proposed health reforms have raised questions about the potential for confl icts of interest.
Since the NHS Commissioning Board will commission primary care, GPs will not be placed in the most obvious position for a confl ict of interest to arise – commissioning themselves for core general practice.
However, it is possible that GPs, as providers, may want to deliver some services consortia are responsible for. There is also a need to address concerns GPs might benefi t from decisions not to refer patients for care. The government has yet to set out how it expects such confl icts to be managed.
There are many situations where a confl ict of interest could occur. It could arise if a person has separate duties to act in the best interests of two or more bodies in relation to the same or related matters, such as in the case of the director of a provider company who could also be a consortium board member and an individual GP service provider. A person’s duty to act in the best interests of any patient or
public body could also confl ict with their own interests in that particular matter.
A consortium board or sub-committee could include GPs who stand to gain personally – or whose partners or practice stand to gain – from the approval of a business case, or the award of a new service contract. Or a GP could refer his patients to a provider company in which he has an interest.
Self-interest is not the only cause of confl icts. A colleague or a family member may have an interest in a particular situation, such as where a spouse was a GP holding shares in a provider company standing to benefi t from a new contract.
So how can commissioning consortia and regulators
deal statutory public trust? Read More with these duties and issues in a
balanced and proportionate way, respecting their
preserving
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